Linklaters has promoted City M&A partner Aedamar Comiskey to global head of corporate.
Comiskey, who ran against fellow London corporate partner Charlie Jacobs and Belgium corporate partner Jean-Pierre Blumberg in the senior partner election earlier this year, replaces Hong Kong partner Matthew Middleditch in the role. Jacobs won the election.
Linklaters has appointed Middleditch to the newly created role of global chairman of the practice.
They will both begin their roles from 1 September 2016 and will work alongside corporate partner Jacobs for a month before he assumes the role of senior partner at the firm.
Gideon Moore, Linklaters managing partner, said both Comiskey and Middleditch would bring “tremendous experience” and “deep sector-based knowledge” to their new leadership roles.
He added: “Matthew’s newly created role recognises his standing in the market and the firm, as well as his deal record and the key client relationships that he will maintain. Aedamar’s significant leadership skills and experience make her ideally placed to help build on the progress the team has made under Matthew.”
In May Comiskey was bested in the senior partner election by Jacobs, long seen as the favourite for the role. Had she won, she would have been the first female senior partner at the firm.
Jacobs will succeed banking partner Robert Elliott, who was elected senior partner in May 2011 for a five-year term, in October 2016.
Comiskey was a late challenger for the senior role and her inclusion on the list came as a surprise to many, with one former partner saying: “If you asked me to name 10 people who would be senior partner I wouldn’t have picked her.
However, partners described her campaign as “great” and said that she was a “credible alternative” to Jacobs, despite being less well known outside the firm.
In contrast, the inclusion of Jacobs and Blumberg had been heavily trailed. Blumberg ran for the role in 2011 while Jacobs is understood to have been interested in the job for at least five years.
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